On Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 06:44:38PM -0800, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> > I do hope your gripe with Lynx isn't the fact that it doesn't support 100%
> > of the "dancing clown" syndrome; I have yet to see *any* browser which
> > fully support *every W3C standard* - including Lynx.
>
> I have a "gripe" with Lynx? No, I'm merely pointing out that it's
> limited in what it supports and what it doesn't, and it shouldn't be
> considered a full web browser by the standards of 2001-2002.
I see. Using that as a baseline, neither Lynx, MS IE, Opera, Mozilla,
Netscape or any other browser can be considered a 'full web browser';
since none of them support 'everything'.
However, this little debate sprang from your comarison between Lynx
and Netscape 2, and I believe it is quite clear that Lynx is more
capable than said version of Netscape.
> Are you saying it _does_ do CSS, DOM, JavaScript, and the other
> things I listed? Nothing on the pages cited indicates that.
Nor does anything in my reply. What my reply does say is that Lynx
have quite good support for a high number of those standards that
by concensus has been established for use on the WWW. I might
note that Javascript is not a technology that Lynx support, nor is
it a standard. By your token I could claim that since Microsoft's
IE 6 doesn't support either ECMAscript, DOM 2, or transparent PNGs
it too is on the same level as Netscape 2.0
I don't find that comparison to be a particular fruitful one.
I do, however, believe quite firmly that Lynx is a better baseline to
use towards accessibility than Netscape 2.0, especially since it is
by far the best browser at linearizing content something which makes
information quite abit more accessible.
One of the 'Old Rules' of testing for accessibility is to check
whether the *information* contained in/on a page can be extracted
or assimiliated with alternative technologies for browsing - such
as braille or voice browsers.
By using Lynx, a page author can get a very good idea of how the
end result will appear - even without investing in a Braille reader
and learning to read it.
--
- Tina Holmboe